Reframing Mathematical Learning Disabilities Through a Vygotskian Lens: A Case Study of a Re-Mediation

• In Event: 63.063 - Disability Studies in Education: Toward Justice Through Educational Reform and Practice in K–12 Schools

Abstract

Prior research on students with mathematical learning disabilities (MLDs) focuses on identifying performance deficits and designing interventions to remedy those deficits. This study presents an alternative perspective grounded in a Vygotskian theoretical frame. From this perspective, mathematics is understood to be a mediated activity and disability is understood to result in the inaccessibility of some mediational tools. Re-mediation, therefore, involves the design of alternative accessible mediational tools. In this study, a re-mediation approach was designed based on a detailed analysis of a student with an MLD. Videotaped re-mediation sessions were analyzed to trace how the student appropriated this novel mediational tool. This paper is a proof-of-concept for reconceptualizing re-mediation and provides an alternative to the dominant deficit discourse.

Author

• Katherine Lewis, University of Washington - Seattle